


Fernweh

by TwistedWillows



Series: Hetalia: Moments in History [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Historical Hetalia, Not A Fix-It, Not a Love Story, i need a hobby, just depressing, my writing is usually depressing, not this hobby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 12:18:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18992527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedWillows/pseuds/TwistedWillows
Summary: Fernweh -literally: far away painsimilar toWanderlust; an intense longing to be in a place other than where you are, in a different time when you could be there.A one-shot about death, history, and dealing with it all.





	Fernweh

Preface

 

« _Beh_ , I’m sorry my friend. » The melodic sounds of French were broken slightly by the static over the phone. « You know I would love to come to Berlin this weekend, but I cannot. Tomorrow is Bastille Day and I would never dream of celebrating anywhere but Paris. » The air from the open window was cool and carried faint sounds of Berlin late at night- a car horn honking, some tourists yelling in the street. The lone lamp in his room shone dimly through the folded dust rag he’d placed over top of it, leaving the walls awash in shadows of purple and blue. Lying on his back on his bed, fingers worrying the smartphone in his hand, Gilbert Beilschmidt laughed and shook his head.  
„That’s just like you Franzie! So sentimental! Tell me, how many centuries have you watched those fireworks from that same little Ch’ti café on Saint-Michel Boulevard?“ Gilbert grinned. He practically heard Francis’s eyeroll through the phone.  
« You know Gilbert, you’re welcome to come. As I recall, you quite enjoyed the last party we celebrated in _that little Ch’ti café on Boulevard Saint-Michel_. » Gilbert snorted.  
„Haha! I like French women, Franz, but there are no women like German women!“  
« Ah of course, those piercing eyes and stark cheekbones are truly the wonder of the western world. Suit yourself, my little pea. Once the festivities are over, we will find Antoine and get so drunk we can’t walk straight. Until then, I bid you good night. _Tschüss, mein Freund_. »  
„ _Au revoir_ , Franzie.“ The phone line disconnected, emptying Gilbert’s room of all sound except the easy din of street life. Flopping carelessly back onto his pillow, Gilbert slowly rolled each shoulder and his wrists one at a time, revelling in the feeling of movement. His eyes slipped closed. A large breath in. A large breath out. The moonlight from outside slanted into his window and washed his skin in a warm glow. It was refreshing. He tuned in to some tourists shouting down in the street. Swedish. Saying… something about a café their friend Olaf recommended… only three blocks away, hopefully it’s still here! Louder, the sound of a woman on her phone on a conference call (so late at night) with colleagues all the way in San Francisco. A distant street sweeper clearing the avenue. Gilbert opened his eyes. Outside in the main apartment, he could hear two sets of footsteps: one heavy and consistent and the other feather-light, like a dancer practicing her ballet routine on the windowsills. His brother and Italy Veneziano. In the corner of the room, the digital number on his alarm clock blinked an update: _21.26_. 

Gilbert chugged the last of the beer in his mug and tossed the smartphone onto the bed. As he made his way out of his room and approached the kitchen, he could hear Veneziano animatedly telling his brother about… he strained to listen. The merits of various basil pots. Ah. Unlike French, even after all of these centuries his ears still could not keep up with the lightning pace of Veneziano’s Italian.  
-You see Ludwig, if you give the plants too much water, they wilt.-  
„How can you tell when it’s time to water the plant?“  
-You ask it!-  
„You… ask?“ Gilbert chose that moment to put his brother out of his misery, ducking around the corner and into the kitchen, startling Veneziano into very nearly dropping the poor plant he was trying to water. He recovered quickly, with a radiant smile spreading across his face and a loud exclamation of,  
\- Big brother Gilbert! Hello! – Gilbert grinned and greeted him with a quick „ _ciao_ “ before approaching his brother to clap the bigger man soundly on his shoulder.  
„West!“ Panic about a shattered pot on the floor now past, Ludwig shifted his focus to his brother and the possibility of a spilt beer mug on the floor.  
„Gilbert?“ Ludwig looked surprised to see him in the kitchen as he shrugged a light jacket over his shoulders, „are you going out?“ Gilbert shrugged.  
„Eh, you know. I’ve been sitting up here all day! You can only contain this much awesomeness for so long, West! I need to show myself outside before the women come pounding on our door!“ Ludwig exhaled his age-old, long suffering sigh and shook his head.  
„Yes, very well Gilbert. Just as long as there are no lawsuits pounding on our door this time…“  
„What was that?!“  
„Nothing, nothing!“ From where he stood, hanging off of his brother’s ridiculously muscular arm, North Italy popped his oblivious head into view.  
\- Have fun, big brother Gil! Here, at least eat some pasta before you go!- And Veneziano raced over to the counter, grabbed a huge white platter loaded down with the pasta-filled whatever he’d made for the two of them that morning, and thrust it eagerly at Gilbert’s face (though not before very nearly tripping on his own untied shoelaces and consequently thrusting it into Gilbert’s face), and Gilbert burst out into laughter.  
„Ahaha! You’re so cute Italy, maybe I should get my own.“ (He’d tried to once. When his brother first started bringing the affectionate Mediterranean nation to dinner and the boy had happily mentioned that he had a twin, Prussia had naturally figured one could only be just as adorable as the other. Prussia would never make that mistake again.)  
\- Ahaha… - said Italy, - What? -  
„Come on, Veneziano.“ Ludwig called to him from the front door, holding out a jacket and watching with affection in his eyes as the smaller nation set down the plate and bounded off to slip it over his shoulders.  
„Well if you do go out,“ Gilbert jerked; he hadn’t realised Ludwig was speaking to him, „be careful. It’s raining outside and the roads may be slick. Veneziano and I will be taking the train to dinner, so the car is yours if you want it.“ Ludwig’s face coloured (hilarious) and he continued somewhat awkwardly, „and ah… don’t… make the guest bed. Ital… I’ll do it when I return.“ There was a second of silence.  
Then Gilbert guffawed and let out a „ _whoop!_ “ as his hulking brother cast his desperate gaze anywhere else, barely fighting the temptation to trap the taller man in a headlock and shout his liaisons to the neighbours.  
„What the hell have you been up to Ludwig!“  
„I- “ But Gilbert was still making a scene and, seeing no escape, Ludwig coughed and ushered a confused Italy to the door.  
„Anyway, good night, Gilbert.“ He said abruptly, and the last of Gilbert’s laughter chased them into the hallway as the door closed behind him. The knob turned, the bolt clicked firmly into place, and Gilbert was standing alone in the apartment.  
For a moment he didn’t move, intently listening to the rhythmic, heavy sounds of his brother descending the stairwell followed by the quiet pitter-patter-crash as North Italy bounce-tripped down behind him. By habit, Ludwig had turned off the overhead light on his way out the door and the apartment was dark aside from a lone bulb over the stovetop which, by habit, Italy had forgotten to turn off. Standing by himself in the darkness, Gilbert felt the corners of his grin relax. He made his way to the kitchen, grabbed a beer out of the fridge, and pushed open the door to the balcony without bothering to shut it behind him.  
The streetlamps cast the road below into a strange world of white and yellow. From the direction of the Tor, Gilbert could hear shouting from a group of Hungarian tourists. Still further into the city, the familiar thunder of U-Bahn trains flying over their tracks beat like a second heart in his chest. Berlin. Home. The muddy water of the Spree had carved his vein lines through his body as it carved the concrete steps of the Reichstag and the mighty rocks which built the Victory Column, the ancient monument towering above the city like a protective arm in stark imitation of Gilbert’s own empty arms, raised to the might of heaven. Gilbert closed his eyes and filled his lungs until he couldn’t possibly fill them anymore, and then he breathed out.  
Below him, a teenage boy stuck his gum on a bench. 

Berlin could be searing on a hot spring night, but in his high-rise apartment on Französische Straße, it was cool on his cheeks. The smell of late night _Döner_ stands was heady but not unpleasant, a strange new addition to the incredibly familiar smell that was Berlin at nighttime. Without another thought, Gilbert grabbed his bag, stuck a note for Ludwig on the fridge, and disappeared out the front door. 

 

Part I

Four hours and a train ride away from Berlin, nestled in a valley at the base of the _Wachtelberg_ , there sat a hospital surrounded by meadows. In early spring, the distant vineyard was asleep, dotted with hundreds of little green buds that attracted the butterflies and left a subtle and sweet smell in the breeze as Gilbert pulled the straps tight on his pack and made his way up the dirt road to a place he knew well. The few lazy clouds looked like whipped meringues as they floated across an azure blue sky and the warmth of the high sun stroked his back. Short meadow grass rustled in the breeze and the flowers twirled and bowed after him as he pushed open the wide French doors of the _Winterwein Krankenhaus_ and slowly stepped inside.  
The hospital was new. Everything was new, it felt like, when you’re no longer really part of the world. The attendant behind the desk was pretty and young and she greeted him eagerly when he walked in.  
„Guten Morgen, Herr Bielschmidt! Wie kann ich Ihr helfen?“  
„Scharlotte Grauwert.“  
It was a beautiful place, full of wide windows and natural light and mercifully absent of the overwhelming smell of antiseptic and preservatives, instead nestled under the perfume of a hallway covered in Cornflowers. This hospital was built in the old style- high ceilings and bricks and wooden beams across the roof. It looked nothing like any modern hospital Gilbert had ever seen- and Gilbert had seen many hospitals. Hospitals were the beginning of it all. The beginning of the most powerful order the world had ever known. Gilbert had built hospitals from the ground, brick upon sun baked brick.  
Gilbert was pulled from his thoughts by the nurse’s gentle „Hier, sie wartet.“ With a polite and curt nod, Gilbert brushed past her and into the room, shutting the door behind him. He looked up and there she was, stark blue eyes and pale blonde hair plaited into an elegant bun on the top of her head. 109 years old and she still looked like a marble angel, glowing in the sunlight through her curtains. She turned to face him, and the wrinkles around her eyes crinkled in recognition.  
„Hello, my country.“ She said. Gilbert smiled.  
Scharlotte Grauwert was a woman of sharp mind and strong stock, with a steady voice and an unwavering hand. She had light hair and pale skin creased by years of honest work and a strong laugh that came from her chest and not her throat. Every morning, Scharlotte rose with the sun and plaited her hair in the mirror that the nurses knew to leave visible at her bedside. She washed her face, dotted two spots of rouge on her paper cheeks, and rose from her bed to water each of the flowers her grandchildren brought her from the garden. She was disciplined and keen, stubborn and hardy, and with an appetite for Beer not even mildly diminished after 109 years of drinking it. Scharlotte was prideful and diligent and strong, like all Prussian women. This is how Prussians were, back then. A proud and strong people who took to the Earth with hoes and swords and wrought from it wealth and warmth. They were a noble people. _His_ noble people.  
As she spoke, Gilbert held her hand and watched her pale blue eyes tracing patterns on the ceiling. She spoke in a rumbling, low Eastern dialect and it was the most beautiful sound Gilbert had ever heard. A dying language, Niderpreußisch. But not here, not to this woman with pale blue eyes and Teutonic features who spoke it fluidly, just as her fathers and their fathers before.  
She spoke to him in the same steady voice she always had, since he met her nearly ten years before. „What have you brought to me today?“ Without dropping her hand, Gilbert fished around in his satchel until he clasped something smooth and familiar. He ran his fingers down the cool, straight sides, caught a curve, followed it down the swoop of a cross- Gilbert pushed it aside. That wasn’t what he was looking for. Not this time. Finally, his fingers hit the object of his search and with a triumphant smirk, he pulled the tiny cup from his bag and brandished it proudly to the woman on the hospital bed, wearing his same smirk as she responded with a victorious cry. Gingerly, he passed the silver glass into her hands. Her eyes were kilometres away as she turned it over, admiring the metal, running her thumb over the delicate insignia carved into it: a golden eagle with mighty wings and a shield bearing Prussian arms.  
„ _Grazzus_.“ She said, _beautiful_. Then, after a long moment, she laughed, and Gilbert’s eyes lit up as her grip tightened in his. „Dearest Prussia, have I perhaps told you the story of when I was a young girl in Berlin? And my father was convinced he was a long-lost relative of the _Hohenzollern_ dynasty- of course, as any good Prussian man must be…“  
So Gilbert sat, as he did each Wednesday, and listened as Scharlotte told him stories of her youth in a grand, Eastern country in 1908. 

 

Part II

 

Gilbert’s head bounced lightly against the window as German countryside flew past his eyes. The waving grass fronds twirled and dipped along the side of the track, sucked towards the speed of the train, but off in the distance, the lone farm houses and occasional small town looked still and serene. Gilbert knew this place. Gilbert knew all of these places. He’d ridden them up and down, fought wars in them with sword and musket and machine gun. Gilbert knew which towns had been where they were since the time before “Germany” was a concept in anyone’s mind. There was a time when any train Gilbert would take flew past places that he recognized, as familiar as the street across from his apartment. Gilbert didn’t take trains much anymore.  
„ _Polska_.“ Droned the female voice over the speaker. Gilbert looked up just in time to see an attendant bending over to stamp his ticket. „ _Deutsch oder Polski?_ “ She asked, but Gilbert turned his head. The smell of coffee beans wafted throughout the train car. At each seat, screens shone brightly and the sound of quiet typing accompanied the rumble of the wheels. The television suspended from the ceiling was cycling through a weather report in Krakow; 15 C* and sunny. A beautiful day. Especially in Krakow. Gilbert remembered how Krakow had been in another time, under another name. It was sunny then too, sunny and so very much like home.  
As the train whirred to a halt against the platform in _Zábřeh_ , Gilbert slung his bag over his shoulder and disappeared out the door in the midst of hundreds of other murmuring travellers. Another train ride and three taxis away, Feliks met him at the base of the Sudety mountains, kilometres away from the town of Čermná. It was no accident that they met here, outside a Czech city and nestled below a Czech mountain. It had not been Czech for so long.  
Gilbert was sitting on a bench in the early morning mist, watching the Corn Crakes scurry through the grass, when the sound of Felik’s Jan Kielman shoes crunched towards him over the gravel. Gilbert turned to look at him as the shorter man came to a stop at the bench. There was silence for a moment before Feliks popped out a hip and hooked a thick strand of hair around his finger, giving Gilbert a broad smirk.  
„Oh my gosh, Gilbert. You like, never come to see me anymore!“ Feliks let out some kind of strange giggle. Gilbert looked up at him without much of an expression, slow magma pooling in his throat. Feliks laughed again. „Well.“ He asked, „are we taking a walk?“

They ended up winding their way down the side of a mountain covered in _Kornblumen_ and _Edelweiße_ amidst the sound of spring cowbells and the soft cries of goats. Feliks wanted to take the sky car, but Gilbert shouldered his pack and pushed ahead, ignoring Felik’s outraged cries of protest in the distance.  
„You’re so like, inflexible! You always have been!“ But the blond-haired man followed along him all the same, for all his complaints easily avoiding the brambles and roots that jutted out in his path.  
They walked in silence, entirely alone aside from the breeze and the occasional butterfly falling by along the gentle wind patterns. The mountain grasses and flowers made their own kind of music, a smooth and ancient song that resonated into Gilbert’s bones. This peace and this mountain were a part of him. The water springing from streams and flowing into the river was the blood pumping through his veins and to his heart. The pine needles and soft blades of grass dotted the line of his eyelashes.  
„Fuck!“ Feliks tripped over a root.  
Gilbert cast him a backward glance, waiting in silence for Feliks to right himself and catch up. „It really has been a long time since you came out, Gilbert.“ He ran a manicured hand through manicured hair and watched the tense line of Gilbert’s back. „I wonder what was so worth taking the trip.“ Gilbert cast another glance from the bottom corner of his eye, meeting Felik’s gaze for an instant before looking back where he was going.  
„Just passing through.“ Gilbert said. Feliks stared for a moment and then heaved an exaggerated sigh, pointedly examining his nails.  
„Well I guess we’re headed to Čermná. It’s a small place. You remember Čermná, of course?” Gilbert said nothing, and after a moment of calculating silence, Feliks continued behind him. They walked together, Gilbert leading the way and Feliks just a step behind, tracing the steep slope over rocks and through little streams, until the sun was halfway across the sky and in the distance the contours of an ancient farming village were present; the spire of a church, the whitewashed walls of meticulously maintained properties. X00 years later and it still looked like Gilbert could ride straight in, sword sheathed at his waist and Teutonic Shield on his back. Čermná sat, as it always had, untouched by the harshness of time. Standing next to him, Feliks trained his gaze on those same red roofs, and flipped his hair back over his shoulders.  
„It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Asked Feliks. He pulled his manicured fingers through his manicured hair. „You should see what Czechia’s done with it. Electric streets. Internet cafés. It’s like, one of the most modern cities in the world.” Gilbert looked at him but said nothing. Feliks shrugged and continued, slowly rounding himself to face Gilbert.  
„It’s amazing what you can do with the side of a mountain.” Said Feliks, because he has a grudge, and god, why was Gilbert there? He didn’t have to be there! Why did he ever leave Berlin? Leave his room in Ludwig’s basement in Heidelberg? What was he trying to prove to himself standing next to Feliks and his pathetically expensive shoes with his eyes burning victorious when the truth is that Feliks has already _won_ ; he can go all over everywhere, hike the entire Alps and back down again, ride every train from here to Paris, get on a horse and gallop every battlefield he ever conquered with sword and shield, and none of it will _matter_ anymore because _he_ doesn’t matter anymore and instead of feeling like home it all just felt wrong and no one could do a single thing about it- not his dying people, not his timeless friends, not even his brother, no matter how many bitter tears either one of them had left to cry.  
With emotion choking his throat, Gilbert looked up and met Felik’s eyes.  
„It was always better back then.“ He said in Niederpreußisch, and he turned his back to Čermná and ran and ran until Feliks had vanished into the distance. 

 

Gilbert left Feliks and was back on the train going East again; why was he always going East? The sun may rise there but it travels across the sky and leaves him behind. Like a sunflower that got it wrong, the other nations stood at his left and his right looking west, into the future, but he _had_ no future. He was nothing but the past. Once his legacy, now his destiny. And just like the sunflower starved of the light, he was dying. He saw it in his pale skin that feels paler now, the cut he got last month that he never told Ludwig about that wasn’t healing; was it not only yesterday that a thousand of Hungary’s arrows in his flesh couldn’t leave a mark? Now a paper cut was killing him.  
Gilbert still had enough bitter humour to bark a short laugh at that idea.  
He jerked his gaze away from the carpet in attempt to banish his thoughts. The Polish countryside- the _Prussian_ countryside- flew by outside the window. The thundering train wheels were racing with the tempo of his heartbeat. He desperately tried to regulate his breathing. Everywhere he looked, his past raced before his eyes. Unbidden, his eyes caught on a dip between mountains in the distance and he felt the recognition spark in his brain and memories flood his vision. It was a familiar path, an ancient path he’d walked before. He could picture the trees which used to stand further along that little dirt road, remember the rocky slope that gave way to a steep valley and- _right there_ , he could see it out the window of the train- the River Pasłęka ( _Passarge_ ). The Battle of Braniewo ( _Braunsberg!_ ). _March, 1520_. Albrecht von Preußen, 37th master of the Teutonic Order- _a soldier like no other who loved Lutheranism but loved nothing more than Kirschsuppe and always sneezed after he laughed_ \- yes, even after hundreds of years Gilbert remembers the feeling of his boots on this ground, remembers the flash of Feliks’s square shield as his Knights drove him from the city, the pride he felt standing atop the Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, remembers the feeling of the world as a tiny ball under his feet and his sword a holy item of the greatest power of the universe.  
He felt the past like a second pack on his shoulders. _He thought it wasn’t real at first. When the Allied Control Council called a meeting that day in Berlin, sitting around that table full of the familiar faces of friends and enemies he had known for hundreds of years and they decided that he could no longer exist._  
He looked around that table, at those who had grown up at his side, those who had fought with blood and iron and built with stone and hemp, and he thought surely: it must be a game. It’s all a game! They’re playing, just like they played when they were children, Hungary shooting arrows into his head and him throwing rocks at her over the wall and he’s played this one before, yes!  
He looked around. Any minute, Hungary would drop down out of her tree, approach him, shake his hand, they’ll play in the mud while their bosses argue about vassals and harvesting wheat. He looked for Hungary but she was gone. That’s right, betrayed him. When the enemy rolled in with cannons and war machines, she left him. She loved him, but she was in love with Austria, and when push came to shove and the Allies arrived, she picked up Austria and kissed his wounds and cursed the name of Germans. There was no Hungary in this room, only the Allies. The Western Europeans, America… France.  
It’s a game- except no, it is real, everything he is and ever was, condensed and scribbled onto ten lines of a flat document, and Alfred has it and he’s putting it in his hand and it says he no longer exists and Alfred’s handing it to him and _Alfred’s handing it to him_ and he looks at Francis but his eyes are hidden by the shadow from the sun.  
He looks to America, wordlessly begging, screaming without sound for an explanation, but there is no compassion there. His eyes are hidden behind dark lenses; there is no sympathy in Alfred’s clenched fists or the hard T created by his shoulders.  
_This must be what England felt like when he lost the Revolutionary War._  
“The German powers are too strong. One of them is going to have to go.”  
Be blunt. Get to the point and say it. _Let your enemy waste time on decorum, it’s boring anyway!_  
Prussia taught him that lesson.  
“We hereby move to dissolve the Kingdom of Prussia. All in favor, say aye.”  
_“Aye!”_

_Would you teach your child how to wield a sword if you thought he would run you through with it?_

Gilbert gasped and smacked his clenched fist against the windowpane, gritting his teeth and squeezing his closed eyes tighter. They say Rome wasn’t built in a day; then how was he destroyed in one? _Rome_. Another ghost from his childhood, wasted away by the harsh reality of time. He was barely a youth in the days of Rome, but he remembers Vati’s mighty wars, the sound of one thousand swords and the tiniest warriors he’d ever seen stampeding over the hills with holy fire in their eyes. Rome lifted his mighty sceptre and slammed it down on the entire known world and they thought he would be the conqueror forever and forever but now he’s dead and gone. He’s had this thought before and he’ll have it again and he’s terrified and he knows if there’s anyone who understands the melancholy of dead childhood friends and lies that sounded like dreams it’s-  
- _Москва_.- Gilbert rose and exited the train. 

On a grassy knoll on the outskirts of Moscow, far away from the honking horns and the shouting people and the sound of sirens wailing, there sat a little wooden dacha as old as time itself. The walls were made of ancient Birch, the sloped ceiling covered in wayward pine needles. A large vegetable garden hid the entrance from the path, a square yellow door inside a green frame and decorated with a thousand intricate carvings, crafted over years and years by the hand of a loving master. As Gilbert approached the house, the chickens ducked and dove aside, content to scratch and scream at the dirt.  
He stopped on the porch. His eyes read a story that he knew by heart, noting each chip, both the new and the old. The green bench on the porch had faded to a muddy yellow. There was a hole in the latticework from a late summer storm. Yet other than this, not a single thing was changed. It never had been. In Gilbert’s mind, it never could be.  
Suddenly, Gilbert was jerked out of his thoughts as the door swung open. The hulking man inside stared at his unannounced guest with a completely blank look, still and silent as a wax figurine.  
- _Привет, Российская Федерация._ \- Ivan seemed surprised. Gilbert was too.  
„ _Привет, Гилберт_. I was not aware you would be in town today.” Gilbert met Ivan’s tall gaze, but said nothing. Suddenly, Gilbert brushed past him and came to a stop inside the house, his eyes methodically scanning the kitchen. Ivan shut the door behind him.  
„I’m just passing by.“ Ivan stared.  
„Through Moscow?“ He asked. Gilbert didn’t meet his eyes, plucking an apple from his fruit basket, looting some plums from the counter. Ivan watched him silently.  
„Yes.“ Gilbert said, a beat too late. „I’m headed to Kaliningrad.“ To Ivan’s credit, not a modicum of surprise was visible on his face.  
„Oh.“ He said after a long moment. He watched in silence as Gilbert rooted through his kitchen. „It is a long way to Kaliningrad,“ he continued, „do you remember your Russian?“ Gilbert stopped halfway through shoving an entire loaf into his pocket and met Ivan’s gaze with a cold expression.  
-Yes.- He replied in Russian. Ivan watched him with a calculated gaze. Gilbert met his eyes for a fleeting moment. Then he went on with stealing with stealing Ivan’s food. Ivan watched him grab a huge hunk of bread, some cured sausages, a shot glass, two-  
-Well then.- Said Ivan in Russian, -I will come.- Gilbert shot up, met Ivan with an unreadable expression. -Do you have tickets?- Wordlessly, Gilbert handed him a small rectangle of paper, which Ivan took between his index and middle finger.  
-I will get my bag.- He said. 

 

Part III

 

 _22.39_  
Gilbert opened the door to their shared cubby and found Ivan sitting up on his bunk under the light of a wall lamp, reading a newspaper article written in English. With a tight grip on the steaming teacup in his hand, he yanked the cubby door shut behind him and sat heavily down on his own bunk, grunting heavily with the momentum.  
The train wheels thundered underneath his feet. The windowpane rattled and sent ripples across the surface as he set the cup down on the small table separating the two of them. He pulled out his phone and scrolled aimlessly through his feed, somewhere, eyes skimming over the words uncomprehending, uninterested in the content.  
„They only had Chamomile.“ He said. Ivan looked at the teacup and nodded before picking it up and delicately balancing the saucer in his lap. Gilbert turned to watch him, but Ivan smoothed out his jacket and turned back to the article in his hands.  
Gilbert unlocked his phone again. His thumb drifted to his blogsite, skimmed some comments, closed it. Opened it. Closed it. Locked his phone. Unlocked it. Locked it. Inadvertently, his gaze wandered to the window. He watched the blackness flying by.

„You could have saved me you know.“ Gilbert said suddenly, with hard steel in his voice. „If I had your support I would've sent them all running back to where they came from. But you said nothing.“  
-We were enemies.- Ivan had a pleasant look on his face. -There was no value in saving you.- Gilbert's rage welled up in his chest- and died down in his throat.  
„I was a new Rome.“ He said. Ivan did not reply. The silence between the two men drowned out the thundering wheels at their feet and spun across Gilbert's vision like corroded film, the blurred images of centuries past muddling reality in front of his eyes, and he pressed his lips together and felt his eyes welling and closed them to block it all out.

The sound of a cap opening yanked him back in to reality, and he looked up just in time to see Ivan filling his empty teacup with a large bottle of Vodka he had apparently been carrying somewhere in his shoulder bag. Gilbert blinked and watched as Ivan let out a deep breath and finished it all in one drink. Then he looked back at his article. Shaking his head, Gilbert turned his head away from Ivan and stared emptily back out at the black sky.  
-I am sure they have beer on this train.- Ivan said. Gilbert said nothing. He felt Ivan’s gaze on his face.  
The ancient light of stars long past twinkled in the night sky above. Their lonely little train raced down its track at lightning speed, an insignificant blip in the vast emptiness of the night. A tiny, lighted dot in a cold and indifferent universe rocketing ever forward, ever faster, towards its own inevitable demise.  
Inside their train car, hyperaware of every sound of the moving universe around him, Gilbert Beilschmidt wondered if the heart was still beating inside his own chest.  
Next to him, Ivan flipped a page. 

Slowly, Gilbert turned his head and looked at Ivan, waiting many silent moments until the larger man felt his gaze and put down his article, meeting Gilbert’s eyes with a flat and expressionless stare. Gilbert spoke.  
„What do you do?“ _When you know you’re going to die and slowly no one will care about you? When you were the history books and now no one remembers that you existed? When you had an empire that spanned the whole world and now the world is going to go on without you?_  
Ivan looked at him. -Drink?- He offered, presenting Gilbert the bottle.  
„Drink.“ Gilbert repeated.  
Ivan poured him a glass.

**Author's Note:**

> ... So.  
> Well, firstly thank you for reading this. Some notes: 
> 
> I often write about multi-lingual characters having multi-lingual interactions, and Hetalia was _born_ of these these, so I've always debated about what's the best way to both immerse the reader but also ensure that they understand the important conversations/aren't overwhelmed by the foreign-ness of what they're reading (which can be distracting, I understand). So in this story, I piloted something out. You may notice the varied quotation marks- « » - - „ “ etc. The quotation marks follow the language that character is speaking.  
> A quick guide:  
> «French»  
> -Italian/Russian-  
> „German“  
> „Polish"
> 
> If it drove you absolutely nuts, well... I guess I'll say _« oops."_ (I'm hilarious.)  
> If I messed up your language, please let me know!
> 
> I have too many thoughts about these fictional characters.  
> When you think about it, it's kind of crazy that an entire nation is just gone. I mean, it's a normal concept to us that Prussia no longer exists-I imagine most of the audience of this fic are far too young to remember East Germany, but the crazy thing is that the Teutonic Knights were a huge part of European history. Prussia was the military might of Europe and a lot of the things we know about the world today came about because of their interaction with Prussian history. For a nation, an _entire nation_ , an entire people to just suddenly not exist, what a concept. And can you imagine Prussia, someone who remembers the days of fighting with a _sword_ , living in a world where everyone's addicted to coffee? This fic is about that. 
> 
> This fic took me a LOT of time, more time than I care to admit, and it started out as a three paragraph one shot and then somehow wanted to become a short novel and then an epic poem before I threw my hands up in the air and told it that it's a one shot and that is how it will stay, thank you very much. I posted a work called "Enough Said" [thanks to my friend for that title, because I can title absolutely nothing ever.] which..... could be a follow-up to this? It wasn't really written that way but the numbness is still there. and I have now written you all an additional fic in the notes, so I take my leave. Thank you so much for reading.


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